School of Cinematic Arts Directory Profile

Directory Profile

Austin Formato, M.F.A.

Part-Time Lecturer

Office: SCA 250

Austin Formato is an award-winning advertising creative director, copywriter and commercial/film director. His clients have included American Express, Jaguar, Miller Lite, Coca-Cola, Dove and Lexus. He has won such awards as the Cannes Lion, an Effie and an International Automotive Advertising Award. He has been featured in Time Magazine, Creativity, Business Week (World Editions), The Hollywood Reporter and Variety.

Formato was voted “The Best Advertising Creative under Thirty in America,” by Advertising Age magazine in 2001. In 2007, SHOTS magazine, the highest-circulation advertising publication, named him one of the top new commercial directors in the world. His commercials have been short-listed for the past two years in Cannes for directing awards and have played in 27,000 movie theaters across America.

As a Writer/Director, he has won numerous awards including the Motion Picture Association of America award for excellence in filmmaking (two years consecutively) and the Samuel Goldwyn Award in feature film screenwriting. While getting his M.F.A. in Directing from UCLA School of Film & Television, he was voted the “Top Film School Director” in the United States at the Limelight Director Showcase by some of the movie industry’s most accomplished talent and executives.

Formato has dual M.F.A.'s from the UCLA School of Film & Television in both screenwriting and directing. He is in his seventh year of teaching Commercial Production and Commercial Directing at the University of Southern California, School of Cinematic Arts.